Andy Dick's Last Resort

Andy Dick had been a comic, improviser in the Chicago scene and eventually landed in Hollywood where he made a career in sitcoms and films. But he has also been drunk, drugged out his mind, arrested to the point where he's more known now as the poster boy for disorderly conduct than his comedy.

Good news for him is that he's been sober for nearly eight months (as chronicled on VH1's "The Sober House"). He has an alcohol-monitoring bracelet secured to his ankle to make ensure this and blogging about his adjustment to sobriety. He's also been performing his one-man show, which makes its way to iO Chicago Thursday night (3541 N. Clark St., 773-880-0199).

HeadCandy: You went to high school in Joliet, and lived here for five years after graduation. What are your memories of Chicago?

Andy Dick: I lived off the Thorndale Red Line stop for five years. I was a tour guide at the Water Tower, taking people to the pumping station, talking about Mrs. O'Leary cow. And I'd go to Ann Sather's all the time. And I also used to work here at Navy Pier, it was my last job before I moved to L.A. I was at Dick's Last Resort, if you can see the satire in that.

HC: What can people expect at your show?

AD: It's The Smothers Brothers, if Andy Kaufman was one of the brothers. It's a one-man show I've been doing for 20 years, and it constantly changes. I guess [Thursday's] incarnation will be a lot about sobriety. I've been sober for seven and a half months, almost eight. Hopefully I get into stories about the good ol' days, even though they were bad ol' days. It'll have a lot of music. It's not stand up comedy.

HC: Is this creative outlet onstage an effective treatment in your sobriety?

AD: Oh yeah. It's beyond therapeutic. It's so cathartic and so needed. My friend who plays guitar with me in the show, he says if I'm not performing, it gets bottled up and I get anxious. And then I need to drink. Drinking quells that monster that needs to come up. But if I can let it out little by little on stage, it's much more productive and creative.

HC: A bit of an abstract question, but where are you in life as of right now?

AD: Comfortable is the word I'd use. I've heard it said so many times that in sobriety, it's a wild ride. It's far more exciting than sitting at my favorite eating establishment in the San Fernando Valley, sitting there with two, three pitchers of beer. All day long. It was to the point that my assistant said one day, "Do we have to sit here for five hours drinking, again?" It really hit me hard.

But I have a lot more fun now. The fun that is promised by all of the liquor advertisers, it's not real. Even the fun I'd have liquored up, I wouldn't be able to tell you. There's much more fun to be had in sobriety. Let's just hope that I stay sober for the rest of my life. I'm more confident because, well, I have a secured, ankle alcohol-monitoring bracelet.

HC: Your improv teacher at iO, Del Close, died 10 years ago this week. What are your memories of him?

AD: The thing about Del was that he treated improv as an art form. Del was very poetic, and he was an artist. He was a man after my own heart. I would hang out with him at the bar, or at Charna [Halpern's] home. Del was a very magnanimous personality, almost like a frightful character, but full of wisdom and compassion.

HC: What lessons did you pick up from Del and Charna?

AD: It happens to be the title of Charna's book [about improvisation]: "Truth in Comedy." It's grounded and rooted in truth. Once you've established the truth, you can go off and get nuts. There are some things in life where truth is greater than fiction. Whether I'm being drunk and disorderly in public, or sober and well maintained in front of an audience, it's all real. With me it's always going to be real. You might not like it, you might like it.

This show that I'm doing, I've been doing it for 20 years. I used to call it the One-Man Harold. Del used to say that the scene will never be what you want it to be, never be what I want it it to be, it will be what we make it together. If you don't let the audience help you steer the ship, if you're not listening to the audience, you're not really there. It's one of the jobs of the artist: to be present.